Unwoman

Unwoman is a solo artist from San Francisco, California. Musician Erica Mulkey (born September 26th, 1980) mixes cello and vocals with electronic influences. The music she creates is often unclassifiable, but has attributes of synth pop and goth. Mulkey began playing cello at nine years of age, and... ↓

Unwoman is a solo artist from San Francisco, California. Musician Erica Mulkey (born September 26th, 1980) mixes cello and vocals with electronic influences. The music she creates is often unclassifiable, but has attributes of synth pop and goth. Mulkey began playing cello at nine years of age, and piano at eleven. At sixteen she studied music at a local community college, composing and incorporating cello, piano, and voice. She attended UC Santa Cruz and earned a BA in music and minored in electronic music.

Her debut album, Knowledge Scars (2002) was well-received as a tribute to a wide range of musical influences, with covers of songs by Kate Bush, Crass, and The Cure, presented in a dark, electronic style. Matthew Heilman of starvox.com writes: "Her style ranges from a kind of experimental trip hop to swirling darkwave atmosphere with just enough static and noise to give it that extra technical punch."

In the summer of 2006, Unwoman toured briefly with the cello rock group Rasputina, filling in as second chair. The following year Mulkey contributed to Attrition's album All mine enemys whispers - the Story of Mary Ann Cotton. In the spring of 2009 she toured briefly with Voltaire on his To the Bottom of the Sea tour. She has also enjoyed brief stints with Vernian Process and Humanwine, as well as fronting a Siouxsie and the Banshees cover band Spellbound.

The name "Unwoman" comes from Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, and refers to the label given to sterile, feminist, or politically deviant women.